75 gallon reef tank

[Goaway]

Sniff test is great unless it's a snail.

I never could figure out what smells worse, dead snail or bjd. Both are so nauseating.

 

[tbrown]

That BJD hammer was nasty. The torch was just gross. Snails are horrendous but hermit crabs....

 

[Stang67]

I never could figure out what smells worse, dead snail or bjd. Both are so nauseating.

Never got the pleasure of bjd. But I lost a Mexican turbo once and OMG.

 

[tbrown]

The worst smell... When you're like 12, take a land hermit crab that just molted and think it's dead, then throw it in your guppy tank and smell it after a couple of days....

 

[tbrown]

Or live in AZ, catch a bunch of crawdads and put them in a water cooler, leave them in the trunk of your car in the summer for 3 weeks and then open it...

 

[Stang67]

Or live in AZ, catch a bunch of crawdads and put them in a water cooler, leave them in the trunk of your car in the summer for 3 weeks and then open it...

Ohn.

 

[tbrown]

Ohn.

It's bad. We'll leave it at that.

 

[shadow_k]

Oooo I like it here awesome tank man !

 

[tbrown]

Oooo I like it here awesome tank man !

Thanks! This tank won't be around too much longer. The 125 has passed a week leak test so it'll probably be getting set up next weekend. Give it a few months and this one's going to slowly transfer over to that.

 

[tbrown]

Because it got buried in the thread...

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/125-took-forever-but-here-it-comes.907906/post-10281298

 

[tbrown]

My alk keeps bottoming out... I've lost 2 montis and a couple of my caps are looking like trash. I'm not using hardly any calcium or magnesium though....

 

[Sean Clark]

How are you maintaining your alk?

 

[tbrown]

How are you maintaining your alk?

I'm dosing baking soda - my pH is 8.4.

 

[Sean Clark]

I'm dosing baking soda - my pH is 8.4.

Baking soda has a pretty minimal effect on pH, could you dose more but do it during lights out?

 

[tbrown]

I'm dosing the recommended dose to bring it up 1 dkh a day - 2 tsp. It's pretty well bottomed out though and I tried adding it to my ATO and it plugged the valve. I just have to be more consistent in adding it every day I think.

 

[Sean Clark]

I'm dosing the recommended dose to bring it up 1 dkh a day - 2 tsp. It's pretty well bottomed out though and I tried adding it to my ATO and it plugged the valve. I just have to be more consistent in adding it every day I think.

Dosing manually? Over 1 dkh/day in a 75 is impressive growth/volume.

 

[tbrown]

Dosing manually? Over 1 dkh/day in a 75 is impressive growth/volume.

No, the problem is I hadn't ever dosed and just expected that water changes were enough. Apparently they weren't. My I can only dose 1 dkh per day to avoid stressing the corals from everything I've read online. I need to get in the habit of dosing a little each day to get up to where I need to be - I'm at 3 dkh. It should take me 3 or 4 days but I dose once or twice and then stop and it starts to dip back down. I just gave it 2 teaspoons so I'll check it again tomorrow. Calcium was 410 and magnesium was between 1350 and 1380. I need to check my phosphates again - they're usually just below 1 but they've dipped to 0 before a couple of times. Nitrates are looking pretty low so I'm going to test them with the Hanna and see if I need to dose a little there as well.

 

[tbrown]

I've been fighting algae and then my montis and birdsnest started their little STN bleaching. Gonis and Alves are good. Favias are struggling. Micros are struggling. Cyphastrea and mushrooms are doing good. Leptos, leptastrea, and Porites are doing good.

 

[Sean Clark]

You are at 3dkh with 410Ca and 8.4pH?
Something doesn't add up. You should either have low pH or low Ca with a dkh of 3.

 

[tbrown]

You are at 3dkh with 410Ca and 8.4pH?
Something doesn't add up. You should either have low pH or low Ca with a dkh of 3.

I have really high carbonate hardness.